


No Gold Can Stay

by QueenofEden



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, F/F, Mentions of PTSD, Multiple Wardens, Relationship Discussions, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3612201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofEden/pseuds/QueenofEden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s 9:35 Dragon. Divine Beatrix has gone to The Maker’s side, Divine Justinia has ascended the Sunburst Throne in her stead, and Leliana receives a letter</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Gold Can Stay

**Author's Note:**

> i've wanted to write this ever since leliana's da2 cameos when we find out she's been working for the divine, and then especially after everything a romanced leliana says in inquisition. i hate that canon forced me to do this to my girls bUT what are u gonna do??
> 
> takes place in the same au as all of my other works where olympia cousland and rhoswen mahariel (who is in a relationship with king alistair) exist simultaneously

The raven arrives early that morning, threatening to rouse the entire household barely an hour after sunrise. They lie side by side – both awake but pretending, hoping not to be – listening to the incessant tapping of beak-on-glass until Leliana, at last, benevolently volunteers to receive it, abandoning the comfort of their warm bed and the circle of Olymipa’s arms –  much to Olympia’s displeasure.

“Just leave it.” she groans, face half smashed into the pillow. She reaches for Leliana weakly, blindly, and Leliana catches the hand and brushes her lips across Olympia’s knuckles.

“I’ll only be a minute.” she replies and slips away with an easy smile. Realizing any more protestations would only fall on deaf ears, Olympia simply rolls half into Leliana’s recently vacated spot and drifts back to sleep, snoring lightly.

She expects to wake again in minutes with Leliana’s return, but when her eyes finally flutter open of their own accord, the new light pressing in through the curtains suggests a much later hour. The bed is empty aside from herself, and long gone cold. Before she can think to control it, a surge of familiar, white hot panic flares to life in Olympia’s chest, chasing away the last vestiges of sleep and propelling her upwards, the bedclothes tossed away so violently they land in a haphazard pile on the floor. Her housecoat and slippers lay forgotten in exchange for the dagger at her bedside as she pads her way down the hall in just her night shirt, the oppressive silence in the house lost to the thundering of blood in her ears.

Olympia calls out, but her own voice, pitched high and strange sounding with desperation, echoing back off the stone walls is the only response she receives. Her stomach turns. She tries again, louder this time, as she rounds the corner into the study expecting the worst, only to find Leliana sitting primly behind the desk, absorbed in whatever is written on the parchment in her hands. She doesn’t seem to notice her even then. Not until Olympia sags against the doorframe with a ragged exhale, the knife in her hand slipping with a muffled  _thump_  to the rug covered floor, does she finally look up from her letter, startled, blinking rapidly as if coming up out of a trance.

“You never came back to bed.” Olympia offers lamely, her face twisted in a grimace. She lifts her trembling hand and studies it for a moment, and then presses it to her chest as if that would help calm the vicious staccato of her heart. Leliana shakes herself and leaps to her feet, the paper falling forgotten from her her fingers in her haste to cross the room. “You said you would be right back, but then I woke up and you weren’t there and I- I just- I thought-” Olympia closes her eyes, draws a deep breath in through her nose. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“Olympia – ”

“Maker’s breath, I thought I’d stopped doing this. I’m sorry Leliana, I’m so sorry, I-”

Olympia goes easily into Leliana’s outstretched arms, grasping the shirt at her back with a desperation that sits like boulders in Leliana’s stomach. “It’s all right, it’s all right now.” she murmers into her hair, because after years of this it’s what she knows Olympia needs to hear. “I’m here. You’re here. We’re both safe, my love.”

When Olympia sighs one final time into the crook of her neck and pulls back, her eyes are dry – if a little red-rimmed. Their fingers lace together instinctually, keeping them connected, and if it also helps to mask the slight tremor that has yet to leave Olympia’s hands, Leliana pretends not to notice.

“So…” Olympia clears her throat with a small cough, a smile on her lips that doesn’t come close to reaching her eyes, her tone full of what Leliana knows is false levity. “Who was the raven from then? Someone important, I gather?”

Leliana feels her eyes flicker back to the desk before she can stop herself. The note lays innocuously on the varnished wood, none of its contents legible from this distance even if Olympia had ever bothered to learn much Orlesian.

She schools her expression, giving Olympia a half smile, hoping to look abashed. “Oh no, nothing of the sort,” she tells her. The lie feels natural in her bard’s mouth, drips from her tongue like poison. Olympia stares back at her, wide-eyed and trusting. “Just something from an old friend in Val Royeaux. Silly me, I let myself get caught up and lost track of the time.” she frees her right hand and uses it to cup the strong curve of Olympia’s jaw. Olympia leans into the touch, eyelids fluttering closed. “I’m sorry.” Leliana finishes, voice barely above a whisper, suffusing those two words with as much genuine apology as she can muster.

The days that follow find Leliana… distant, to say the least.

Olympia attempts not to dwell; Leliana is just as busy as she is and not everything need be taken personally. That’s what she tells herself, anyway. So she answers missives, signs her name to things she probably should have read more thoroughly, trains in the yard, visits the palace – even checks in on Amethyne in the alienage once –  anything and everything to distract herself until eventually all her days and duties blur together. Meanwhile, Leliana avoids her as much as she can without being obvious about it. She still returns to the estate every night in time for supper, still kisses her without complaint, still shares a bed with her. They even make love, but all of it seems _tainted_  by something, somehow. Something unnameable and just out of reach, but it makes worry sit heavy in Olympia’s chest, as inescapable and crushing as an ogre’s grip.

She tells all of this to Rhoswen late one afternoon, close to a week after the letter had arrived, simply because her friend had innocently asked how Olympia was faring, and suddenly it was all spilling out, desperate for an audience besides her own overworked heart and mind.

Rhoswen (and may whatever gods she prays to bless her for her patience, olympia thinks to herself later) sits through it all without complaint. At the end of her tirade, when Olympia has draped herself in the chair across from her to sulk in silence – the very picture of petulance – Rhoswen sits forward and says,

“I take it you’ve mentioned none of this to Leliana herself?”

Olympia pinches the bridge of her nose, “Of course not.”

“Why?”

“Because!” Olympia huffs. When Rhoswen fails to look impressed by her excuse, she groans. “What if i’m overreacting? What if this is nothing? Leliana is already victim to more of my…” she waves her hand, searching for the right word. “ _neuroses_  than she deserves.”

Rhoswen frowns but says nothing about  _that;_ a discussion for another day perhaps, if she thought Olympia would ever allow it. Instead she asks, “Do  _you_  honestly think it’s nothing?”

Olympia’s head tips back as far as it can go, her eyes searching the high, vaulted ceiling for guidance. Rhoswen watches the inner turmoil shift and pinch her features, until finally Olympia scrubs her hands over her eyes, sighing again through her nose.

“No.” she says. She sits up, tucking her legs up against her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. “But if it’s not – if it’s not all in my head then… why? What have I done?” Her voice is smaller, more unsure than Rhoswen ever remembers hearing it, and curled in on herself the way she is, she reminds Rhoswen more of a frightened child than the woman – the warrior – she knows her to be.

“You mentioned a letter. Maybe something in it upset her?” she says, but Olympia is already shaking her head.

“No. No I asked, she said it was nothing serious. If it had been, she would have told me.” Rhoswen raises a brow, and Olympia’s face falters. “Wouldn’t she?”

“Unless… perhaps she didn’t want to upset  _you._ ” Rhoswen says finally, spreading her hands with a tiny shrug. Olympia drops her gaze, looking ashamed, before she buries her face entirely in her propped up knees. She’s quiet for a while, and almost unnaturally still, like a statue, with only the steady rise and fall of her back and the sound of her breathing disrupting the effect.

Eventually she speaks again, though it’s so quiet and muffled by her legs Rhoswen nearly doesn’t hear her ask:

“So what do I do?”

Rhoswen uncurls herself from her chair and stands, padding over to Olympia on silent feet. Olympia only looks up when she stops just short of where her feet dangle over the edge of the seat. With her seated and Rhoswen standing, the reversal in heights is enough she has to tilt her head up to meet her eyes. The novelty of it makes Olympia smile a little in spite of herself, which draws a matching grin from Rhoswen, who puts her hands on Olympia’s arms, just above her jutting elbows.

“Do you love Leliana?” she asks. The question takes Olympia off guard, her brow furrowing in confusion.

“I- of course I do! More than anything, you know that.” She bristles. “Why would you even ask me something like that?”

Rhoswen’s lips twitch at the outburst, just the barest amount. “And I know that Leliana loves you. Just as much.” She says, giving Olympia a small shake. “So  _talk to her._ ”

As if it were that simple.

  
It should be, she thinks to herself later that night as she pours out two goblets of wine with shaking hands. Olympia hasn’t been nervous like this in years, so different from the anticipation before a battle. Even the uncertainty of victory is nothing compared to this. In this she feels out of control, out of her depth, unmoored and set adrift without an anchor, and she despises it.

The first cup she drinks in one deep gulp – for courage – then refills it to carry with the other into their shared bedchamber where Leliana had retreated early from supper. Olympia could hardly blame her. She hadn’t felt much like eating that evening either, though mostly due to her stomach being full of knots over… well, whatever it was that had Leliana picking dismally at her own food before she’d finally shoved it away and excused herself.

The wine helps. It takes hold quickly on her empty stomach and fills her with a comfortable, all over warmth, relaxes her muscles and her mind enough she feels she may  _actually_  be able to do this. That false courage carries her through the house and to the closed door, gives her the strength to grasp the handle and turn it, stepping into the darkened room.

She isn’t sure what she expected to find, but Leliana down on bent knee in quiet prayer, the room lit only by the fire burning in the hearth, hadn’t quite been at the forefront of her thoughts. Leliana’s head jerks up in startled realization when she hears the creak of the door, her quiet words bitten off with a gasp, just the back of her head visible from where Olympia stands framed in the open doorway.

“I’m sorry,” she says as Leliana stands and turns to face her, swiping a surreptitious hand across her cheek. It’s hard to tell in the almost-dark but she looks like she may have been crying. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“You’re never a bother to me.” she replies. Her voice sounds strained, exhausted, but the smile she offers is soft and warm. “Especially when you’ve brought me wine.”

“Oh-” Olympia looks down, remembering the goblets balanced in her hand. “Right, right of course. Here.” Leliana takes the proffered cup with both hands, fingers brushing Olympia’s gently. She drinks deeply from it, then carries the rest to the settee pulled up beside the fire where she sits, placing the goblet on the floor by her feet. Olympia follows her down, leaving her own untouched glass on a side table, sitting close enough that their legs press together from hip to knee. Leliana practically sags into the touch, her head finding rest on Olympia’s shoulder, and Olympia wraps an arm around her waist to draw her into an embrace.

An eerie kind of quiet settles over them, with just the popping and cracking of the wood and the sounds of their breaths whooshing in and out of time with each other. They could be anywhere, any  _when_ , else, if they were to just close their eyes. The scene doesn’t feel so different from a campfire, perched on a log or the ground, surrounded by tents with a vast sky of twinkling stars above their heads. They could be there, Olympia thinks, but they’re not. They’re here, in  _their_  bedchamber, in a house that was once her parents’ and is now hers, and a question tugs at Olympia’s mind, insistent, feeling as if she doesn’t ask it now she probably never will.

“Do you love me?” Olympia asks, without preamble, and Leliana’s body immediately tenses under her hand.

“Of course I do.” she replies, her lips moving against Olympia’s shoulder. It tickles. “Why would you ask me something like that?”

Olympia’s eyes scrunch closed as she breathes in. “Then do you trust me?”

Leliana raises her head and Olympia opens her eyes. Their eyes meet, blue on blue, so alike but so very, very different. She sees something shift behind Leliana’s gaze, there and gone again in an instant, that sends a chill racing down her spine despite the heat from the fire burning so close by.

“What is this about?” Leliana asks her, but the look on her face says she already knows the answer.

“Just answer me first.” says Olympia.

“Yes.” Leliana sighs, covers Olympia’s hand with her own. “Of course I trust you.”

The vice that had held tight to Olympia’s heart the last week foolishly loosens an infinitesimal amount.

“If you love me.” she says, her gaze fixated now on their touching hands. “And you trust me.” she turns her palm upwards so they press together. “Then why won’t you tell me what’s so obviously troubling you? And don’t pretend that it’s nothing, I’m not always as oblivious as you think me to be.”

Olympia studies the back of Leliana’s hand in the silence that follows. Each fine hair, each scar, each freckle as intimately familiar as her own, and yet still she has no idea what Leliana is about to say.

Luckily she doesn’t have to wait long.

“I- I’ve been called away. Back to Orlais.”

Olympia looks up, tries to catch her gaze again but her head is turned, cast in shadows that make it impossible to read her expression.

“You’ve made trips to Orlais before.” Olympia says with a shake of her head, not understanding. Leliana’s eyes flicker back to her, a telltale tightness visible around the corners even in the dim light. Olympia’s own eyes widen, then narrow, realization settling in her gut like a sickness. “But,” she says slowly, “this isn’t  _just_ a simple trip to Orlais. Is it?”

The air in Leliana’s lungs exits in a rush, the hand still set on top of Olympia’s flexes once, then resettles.

“No.” she says.

“Then what is it?” asks Olympia.

Leliana hesitates, biting at her lip – a nervous tick she rarely indulges in – before answering. “Her Most Holy, Divine Justinia, has requested my….  _services_.” the weight she gives that word chills Olympia to the bone and leaves no question as to what she means by it. “I’m to report to her in Val Royeaux at once.”

Olympia’s head reels. She squeezes her eyes shut against the sudden dizziness. “So that letter you received. That was, that was from _The Divine_ herself?” she laughs once, a quick, harsh sounding thing, bordering on hysterical. “I- I asked you if – you  _lied_  to me?”

“Not a lie.” Leliana insists, then wavers. “Not entirely. Before she was Justinia, she was simply Dorothea. You remember the name, don’t you?” Olympia nods dumbly because yes, of course she remembers. Memories of a dark night with darker truths passed between them. “Then you remember that she  _is_  a friend. It was… an omission. At most.” Olympia tries not to sneer.  _Semantics. A twist of words – bard’s logic._ She thinks icily.Though from the look on Leliana’s face she doesn’t quite believe in what she’d said any more than Olympia does.

Finally Olympia asks with a huff, “For how long then? How many months?”

Leliana frowns but doesn’t speak.

“Oh Maker.” Fear hitches Olympia’s breath in her throat. Leliana casts her eyes downward, remaining silent still. “ _How long?_ ” Olympia manages to ask, with all the breath she can squeeze out of her lungs, and Leliana’s face twists like she’s in pain.

“Indefinitely.” she replies, and Olympia is drowning.

She lurches up from her seat with a curse, feeling sudden, unwanted tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She paces to the mantle and back, then back again, presses her forehead to the cold stone of the wall and sucks in a deep breath.

“Tell her you can’t.” Olympia whispers.

Leliana stares back at her, incredulous.“What?”

“Tell her you can’t! Please, you have to tell her you can’t go!” she repeats, wheeling around, a desperate, pleading edge to her voice.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?” Olympia asks her, crossing back to settee. She resists the urge to drop to her knees in front of her and beg, gathers all the last bits of her pride instead and takes her place beside her again, clutching Leliana’s hands in her own. Leliana grips them so back so tightly the bones in her fingers grind together and ache. “I can see it in your eyes. This – tell me you don’t want to do this?”

This time it’s Leliana who rises, retreats away from the light and warmth of the fire with her arms crossed over her stomach defensively.

“Do you think this has been easy for me?” she asks, voice wavering. Olympia can hardly see her face for the shadows, but her eyes catch the weak light and glint with unshed tears. “Having this burden placed on me? To keep it from you?” she sucks in a breath and releases it in a slow, shaky exhale. “I have spent every day in the chantry, praying over this. Asking The Maker what this is supposed to mean for me, for  _us._ Begging Andraste to give me guidance.”

Olympia scrubs her hands over her face. “And did you receive your answer?”

“I know that this is something I have to do.” Leliana replies carefully, avoiding the question. “What I’m meant to do.”

Anger swells in Olympia’s chest before she can think to suppress it, stoking the coals of rage deep in her soul to full blaze. In a way it’s a comfort, something familiar. Anger has always come easier than grief, sadness, or uncertainty, and after being cast adrift in her own thoughts for so long it’s a safe harbour in a storm at last; a rope to cling to, and one she grabs at and holds fast with all her strength.

“So I’m to believe it’s The Maker’s will that you, what?” she asks, her voice feeling steadier now for the heat behind it. Leliana’s back stiffens in response. “Abandon Ferelden? Abandon everything we’ve worked for?”

The unspoken,  _Abandon me?_ hangs heavy in the air between them.

“If you would listen to me—” Leliana entreats, but Olympia is too far gone now; white hot anger under her skin – licking at her words.

“You told me you were done with The Game, yet here now you’re willing to throw yourself back into the very heart of it?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“And to what end?” she asks, ignoring her. “To– to become The Divine’s  _pet_? Sent off to do whatever dirty work she’s  _supposed_  to be above doing herself?”

“ _Stop._ ” Leliana snaps, her voice cold and unforgiving as steel as she steps forward back into the light. Olympia stands, breathing in one shuddering breath after another, torn between holding her ground and taking a step back to maintain the space between them. She hovers in the in-between, the settee the only thing separating them, and yet it may as well have been the gaping expanse of the Waking Sea. “I owe Justinia my _life._ ” she continues, the delicate features of her face twisted with anger, and somewhere underneath it all, grief. Regret. _“_ I’ve a duty to fulfill, to her and to The Maker. I thought you above all others would understand what that means.”

Olympia feels struck, as though the words were a physical blow as strong and staggering as any sword.

“I understand what  _duty_  means.” she says through clenched teeth. “But isn’t it you who taught me that duty to ones self is just as important? I mean – ” she sucks in a breath, “Were you even going to ask me about this? Had I not come to you tonight would you have told me, or would I have woken up alone again in the morning, only this time with you gone for good?”

“This was a choice I had to make for myself, for once in my life.” Leliana says, looking almost sad. “Yes, I kept the letter from you, but I would never have left without telling you. Maker’s breath, how could you even think I would do something like that?”

“I don’t – I didn’t. I just – ” Olympia says, throat suddenly tight with tears. The tremulous hold on her anger she’d had seems to be loosening as the feeling wanes, replaced by a yawning, all consuming ache in her chest. With a deep breath that seems to be lost to that void almost as soon as she draws it, she closes the distance between them, rounding the arm of the settee and, with just a little hesitation, takes Leliana’s face gently in her hands. To her relief, Leliana doesn’t pull away, but neither does she lean into the touch the way she used to.

Olympia’s thumb brushes across the plane of her cheekbone. “You looked me in the eye once and told me that you didn’t want that life anymore, and I believed you. You told me how frightened you were by the thought of what going back to that might mean, might do to you, and I  _killed_ Marjolaine, in cold blood, for  _you._  So  _you_ would be safe from it.” they both tense at the name, the memory. Olympia swallows thickly. “Now look me in the eye again, if you can, and tell me that this is the choice you’ve made, that this is what you  _really_  want.”

Leliana is quiet and Olympia waits, watches her love’s face remain eerily impassive even as her thoughts must be racing. Years of bard training, of hiding one’s thoughts and emotions behind a mask – both literal and figurative – make her nearly impossible to read without knowing exactly what signs and tells to look for. But Olympia does, knows her better than she knows herself at times. Which is perhaps why it comes as really no shock at all when Leliana finally says,

“Of course it frightens me, if it didn’t, I could have made this choice days ago.” she blinks slowly, and when her eyes open again they don’t waver from Olympia’s, “But if this is the sacrifice I must make in order to do what has been asked of me, to serve The Divine, The Maker, to  _help people_ , how can I refuse?”

There’s a light in her eyes, distinct and all-telling, one that Olympia recognizes from years ago when she’d listened to a strange woman tell an impossible tale about a dream and a rose on some back country hinterlands road. Her belief illuminates her whole face in breathtaking ways; Leliana is always beautiful beyond words but this – she is never more so than with the spark of hope and conviction in her every word and movement, lighting her up from the inside like a brilliant sun. It’s what drew Olympia to her back then, and it’s what makes her fall a little in love all over again, even now despite her breaking heart.

“All right.” Olympia whispers, the word feeling like shards of glass in her mouth. “All right.” She closes the last of the distance between them and presses her lips and then her forehead to Leliana’s brow. A second later, Leliana’s arms are around her, one low on her waist to pull her just that much closer, the other tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck. They close their eyes, Olympia first, followed by Leliana, concentrating on the feeling of their chests rising and falling out of tandem with each ragged breath.

“So what becomes of us then?” Olympia asks when the silence eventually turns from peaceful to oppressive. Leliana shakes her head, bumping their noses together.

“I don’t know.” she says honestly. Olympia pulls back enough that she can see Leliana’s face clearly. The fingers still buried in Olympia’s hair tighten reflexively, wanting to hold her there, but relent. “I don’t know.” she echoes, “But I will not lose you.”

“We both know you can’t promise that.” Olympia says, frowning.

“I do not make promises I can’t keep.” Leliana says with such surety Olympia almost starts to believe her. Andraste help her, how she wants to believe her.

“What if—” The words are spilling out of Olympia’s mouth before she can even consider them fully. “What if I came with you?” A startled look crosses her face, one that surely matches the one on Leliana’s face before she lets out a small, undignified snort.

“What?”

Now that she’s said it aloud, it seems so obvious.  _Maker, why hadn’t she thought of it before?_  “Let me come with you.” she says again, this time with confidence instead of surprise. Her hands slip down to take Leliana’s in her own, squeezing them.

Leliana shakes her head in disbelief, “Olympia you hate it in Orlais.” she says matter-of-factly, and Olympia rolls her eyes, opens her mouth as if to say  _well yes, but –,_ but Leliana continues, “Besides, what of your duties here as Commander? The Ferelden Order is still practically in it’s infancy, they need you.”

Olympia frowns slightly. “Rhoswen is as much Commander of the Grey here as I am, she’d be fine on her own.” she replies, undeterred.

“And what will  _you_  do?”

“I- I’ll petition the First Warden for a transfer to Montsimmard. It wouldn’t be unheard of if I made trips to the capital from there, not if I were recruiting.”

“Olympia you’re being ridiculous.”

“Am I?” she asks. “Why? Why is it so ridiculous?”

“Because I know Orlais,” Leliana says with a sigh. “Do you think, even if you were there on strictly warden business, you wouldn’t draw attention, just by being who you are? A thousand rumours and scandals? That you would not have a target on your back from the moment you stepped across the border?”

Olympia scoffs. “I don’t care about any of that.”

“You may not, but  _I_  do.”

“So it’s a ridiculous notion because I would be, what? A  _liability_?” Olympia lets out a snort of derision. The idea is ludicrous, she thinks, and expects Leliana to refute it immediately, but she watches as Leliana shifts uncomfortably and says,

“Yes. In a way.”

Olympia could laugh at that if her body, inside and out, didn’t feel like it had been struck by ice from a mage’s staff.

“To whom exactly?” she manages, crossing her arms under her chest, feeling suddenly too small in her own skin. “The Divine? Or to  _you_?”

The corners of Leliana’s mouth turn down. “If I am to become The Divine’s Left Hand, then whatever affects me, whatever I do, will also be a reflection on Her Holiness, obviously.”

“Oh yes,  _obviously._ ” Olympia snaps, voice heavy with sarcasm. “So since I am so clearly something to be ashamed of, what am I meant to do then? Stay hidden away here while you go off for Maker knows how long? To possibly never see you again? Unless of course that’s –” she exhales sharply, unconsciously backing away from Leliana a few more steps, averting her gaze as her sudden boldness slips through her grasp and vanishes as quickly as it had come. “Is that what you want, after all?”

“ _No!_ ” Leliana says quickly, moving forward and placing her hands on Olympia’s elbows. “No, absolutely not. I am not, and never will be  _ashamed_  of you.” she sighs, sounding more than a little exasperated, and Olympia feels a twinge of guilt despite herself. Leliana’s fingers dig into the flesh of her arms, more a plea than anything. “But Maker help me, Olympia, can’t you understand that this isn’t  _about you?_ ” Olympia blinks, stunned, as Leliana presses on, “This is why I hesitated to tell you about the letter; why I lied to you. Perhaps that was wrong of me, but I knew this is how you would react and, Maker forgive my selfishness, I wished to put it off for as long as I could.”

Olympia deflates completely at the raw emotion in Leliana’s voice. She was right, of course. Here Leliana was, struggling with a decision difficult enough to send her into nearly a week long existential crisis, one she had decided to shoulder all on her own for fear of Olympia’s reaction – apparently for good reason – and all Olympia could do was accuse her, demand things of her, and then have the gall to paint herself the victim of it all. Clearly Leliana had been right not to trust her with this. Guilt twists and wrenches her stomach into knots, and she swallows thickly against the bile threatening to rise in her throat, feeling appalled at herself.

“I’m sorry –” she says, wanting to tear herself away from Leliana, to be alone in her revulsion, but unwilling to go without the half-painful pressure of her nails pricking at her skin – practically all that is keeping her grounded. “It wasn’t wrong of you, I – I mean, Maker forgive  _your_  selfishness? He should banish me to the darkest depths of the Void for mine.”

Olympia does manage to pull herself free then, retreating to sit cross-legged on the edge of their bed. Leliana follows closely, the mattress dipping as she sits directly beside her, a mirror image of how they’d been before on the settee. Leliana reaches out a hand to brush back the loose hair around Olympia’s face, but she bats it away. She settles for resting the same hand on Olympia’s knee.

“That came out perhaps harsher than I intended.” she says, ignoring Olympia’s shaking head. “I just wanted you to realize that – it’s not as though I don’t feel any anger or fear of my own over this. Truthfully, I’m struck to the core with it.” She reaches up once again, and cups Olympia’s cheek. “Nor do I relish the thought of being separated from you.”

Olympia leans into the touch, nuzzling her palm lightly. “You still shouldn’t have been afraid to come to me earlier. And I should have – I should have realized why you didn’t.” she gives a wry little laugh, spreading her hands, “It’s not as though my knack for thinking with my temper first is any great secret.”

At that, Leliana smiles. “For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have you any other way.” she says, using the hand still curved around Olympia’s jaw to draw her into a gentle kiss, their first in a week’s time without the heavy presence of untold secrets to pollute it. Chaste though it may be, when they finally pull back, Olympia can’t help but chew at her lower lip, a warm, almost contented flush crawling up into her cheeks – the twin of which also colours Leliana’s fair skin, nearly swallowing whole the light dusting of freckles there in its wake.

“You say that now,” Olympia replies with a small cough, “but I’m still sorry. I should have been – I should  _be_ better.”

“As am I. And you are more than forgiven, my love.”

Olympia sighs. “You still intend to go though, don’t you?” she asks futilely, already knowing full well what the answer will be.

Leliana blinks slowly, drawing in a deep breath through her nose. “Yes.”

Olympia nods, straightening her shoulders. “And so the matter of what’s to become of us is—?”

“I said I would not lose you and I meant it.” Leliana replies, “We would hardly be the first and only lovers to be separated by circumstances beyond our control, no? I am willing, so long as you are.”

“The alternative being the rest of my life without you at all?” Olympia asks, a sour look on her face. “Of course I’m willing.”

“Good.” Leliana kisses her again. “That’s settled then.”

Olympia returns the kiss, albeit a little half-heartedly, before dropping her head into the crook of Leliana’s neck. Leliana holds her close, her own cheek pressed firmly against the crown of Olympia’s head, scratching absentminded at the base of her skull.

“This still doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?” she says after a lengthy silence, quiet enough that Olympia isn’t truly sure she’s speaking to her.

“I find that life rarely is.” Olympia replies, her words coming out muffled against Leliana’s skin. Above her, Leliana sighs heavily.

“I have no doubt that this is the right thing to do, I feel it in my soul, it’s just – ” she pauses and Olympia feels her swallow, “I had hoped for what we’d planned, you know? That after everything I’d been through, after we both survived The Blight, that the Maker might grant me some true peace at last. With you. I suppose that was foolish of me.”

“Perhaps we’re cursed,” Olympia says around the lump in her throat. “Falling in love during a Blight and all.”

“Don’t joke like that.” Leliana chides.

“Well, it’s not as though we’ve any proof to the contrary.”

Olympia can’t see her face, but she knows Leliana is scowling when she says. “Alistair and Rhoswen are doing fine.”

“Oh yes,” Olympia snorts, lifting her head a fraction of an inch before Leliana presses her back down. “One to be forced into an eventual marriage of convenience, and the other shuffled away as his not so secret mistress. Truly a happily ever after to written about in children’s tales for years to come.”

“But they  _are_ happy, are they not? Things may be complicated, but they’re making the best of it.”

“And is that what we’re meant to do as well then?” Olympia asks, growing somber again. “Simply ‘make the best of it’?”

Leliana’s hand on her stills, just a brief stutter, before continuing its idle scratching. “What else can we do?” she muses aloud, more to herself than as a real answer.

Quiet envelops them once again, even when Olympia’s back starts to protest at her hunched over position, neither of them exchange any words, just shift around each other until they both are lying down, still curled around one another. Tucked against her the way she is, Olympia takes the time to try and memorize all the parts of her she can; every scar and freckle on her skin, the slope of her breastbone, the gentle swell of her breast, and the curve of her hip, down to the soft brush of hair against her skin. Most of all her smell – incense on her clothes and in her hair from the chantry, the pleasantly spicy smell from the oil she daubs behind her ears every morning – barely there anymore this late in the day – and underneath it all, the the ever present, lightly floral scent of the soap Olympia knows she orders specially from a boutique in Val Royeaux and hoards like a squirrel keeps nuts for winter. Surely such drastic measures wouldn’t be necessary once she took up residence there again, she thinks. Perhaps she’d be willing to part with a bar or two for Olympia to keep, to remember her by?

The thought brings with it an overwhelming sense of sadness, despite it’s ridiculous, if slightly maudlin, nature. Will there truly come a time when the bedclothes smell only of her once again? When all she’ll have left to remind her are a few measly bars of soap and a few half-faded memories? How can one prepare for such a thing? A wayward tear sneaks past her lashes and pools in the hollow of Leliana’s collarbone.

“What are you thinking about?” Leliana asks, being the one to disrupt the silence once again. Olympia licks her lips.

“You. Us.” she replies honestly, her voice strained. “Why? Were you thinking of something else?”

Leliana hums. “Stars.” she says, tipping her head back as though she could see the sky even through the layers of stone and mortar.

“Stars.” Olympia echoes dumbly.

“Yes. Don’t tell me you you’ve forgotten my favourite story already.”

Olympia desperately wracks her brain, sifting through dozens of years old memories before finally alighting on the one in particular.

“The noble lady…” she says slowly, testing the words. “And her lover, sent off to the wars?”

“I knew you remembered.” Leliana hums again, sounding pleased.

Olympia frowns. “I seem to  _remember_  that story not having a very happy ending. Quite a sad one, in fact.”

Leliana chuckles, a rumbling in her chest, loud in Olympia’s ear. “And  _I_ remember explaining to you that it wasn’t sad, it was  _hopeful_. That so long as they loved each other, and no matter the seemingly insurmountable distance between them, they would eventually be reunited.”

Olympia’s throat feels suddenly tight. “ _Oh._ ” she whispers, blinking back another bout of tears.

“So yes, I was thinking about stars.” Leliana replies, her voice cracking around the words, which she dutifully ignores and waves away with a delicate little cough.

“It’s been such a long time,” Olympia says after a moment, her fingers curling and uncurling around a handful of Leliana’s tunic. “since you told it to me the first time. Perhaps, if I heard it again…?”

Above her, Leliana smiles despite the two tears that roll down the sides of her face, one slipping down her neck into the coverlet below, the other lost, unnoticed, to the thickness of Olympia’s hair.

“Of course,” she says, taking in a measured breath and releasing it slowly, forcing the waver out of her voice.

“ _A long time ago, there lived a fair maiden called Alindra—_ ”


End file.
